I am sat starting to write this blog on Christmas Day evening, nothing has been wrong with today I have had a very good day but as I have written in previous blogs I am a carer for my wife. She is now tucked up in bed. Her Psoriasis has progressed and psoriatic arthritis is causing us more problems. As we start to understand more about her condition there is a clear link between infections, treatment cycles and fatigue. Not fatigue in the sense of being a little tired but fatigue in a medical sense where despite being tired and even when sleeping, her quality of sleep limits the benefits.
This is not a poor me blog, but I hope that by writing this I may help someone else. I am hoping that perhaps this will be uncomfortable reading and if I have written it correctly then for some people it will make them angry. Anger is a misused emotion it is the calling card that change need to happen and the only thing we can change for certain is our response to situations and feelings.
Taking a leaf from Dame Esther Rantzen perhaps some of this is therapy, although I will not be writing this for the same journalistic institution she uses.
I am going to start with the Robins Williams quote:
"I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it is like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that"
The blog was going to be about are we really looking after our colleagues in the work place, but recent experiences have taught me that perhaps we need to look deeper to our own actions.
Let us get this started in a work environment.
As adults we spend a large proportion of our time at work with our colleagues and yet do we actually get to know them or do we simply co-exist? Office dynamics will always change this but being on secondment has opened up my world to working with an amazing group of people. Perhaps prior to this secondment, I was a round peg in a square hole. I sit in the very lucky position that I hope I can say that every day I go to work, I go to work with friends. We all have our own roles and responsibilities but nevertheless there is a commonality that is the foundation for friendship.
For many years the way in which people communicated and lived their life means it is easy for people to come in do their job and go home and there will always be those in life who choose to do that. There will in equal measure be those who bounce around the office. But for many we will never be privileged to know what is really going on outside the walls of work, yet no matter how hard we try what happens outside will undoubtedly have an impact inside work. There are those who can use work as an escape but even so what is happening on the outside has an impact despite the choices we make.
We now have the pseudo world of Social Media; many people sadly abuse social media either by making their lives seem amazing or by thinking that it is a space where you can say anything you want with no consequence. If only people would use it properly it could be such a tool for good, a place to keep in touch with friends and a way of maintaining links over long distances with more people. Having just sent and received Christmas messages, social media allows the same conversation to go on not only once a year in a letter of biblical length but on a more intimate day to day basis.
The internet is a complete minefield which could be described in the language of a topical politician as 'fake news'. Information can always be readily defend our knowledge of half truths where as real facts taken time, research and understanding. It taints our views and societies expectations.
I hope this will not upset the people involved but I recently went to the aid of someone who tried to commit suicide, let me make one thing very clear there are some who call these cries for help, something that can be ignored, simply look at the term a cry for HELP. At a moment in someone's life they see they only way forward in the world as being to stop existing in it. What society have we created that these kind of actions can be unresolved and and those cries unanswered. It is very easy to say we are not equipped to to deal with it, there is a health service there that will pick up the pieces. I am too busy and have my own problems. The one thing I know is the feeling of sheer inadequacy I had when I was sat with them, no words would make things 'better' nothing I could do would be a miracle cure, but at the same time I was the one who had been reached out to and the only thing to do was my best.
In my own personal battle I know the value of that one person at that time of crisis. Let's face it choose whatever words you want but at that moment in time when someone is having a crisis their mind is controlling them and rationality has left. Sometimes all we can do is to be there and try and stop any more harm. The fix is down to medical professionals, the treatments they have available and the patient to be in a place where they feel safe enough to change.
One of the things patients are taught as they recover from that feeling of worthlessness is to put things in place to combat and prevent thoughts from taking hold. This is where society and the work place comes in, it is hard for people to say I need this for my mental health, because there is so much stigma attached to the mere statement. If someone had cancer then everyone rallies round and gives them support, perhaps it is because there is something physical, something we can attempt to understand. But with mental health the tablets are only part of a picture, the get a grip campaign may want to stop reading now, humans are by their very nature a communal animal, a large part of what is hard wired in to us is about being together as a pack. A pack exists with structure and responsibility but the key thing of any successful pack is the ability to look after the pack.
Somehow we seem to have lost all sight of this what we say and what we do are at opposite ends of the spectrum. From bitter painful experience I have found we are in general becoming worse at this, in an enlightened age when medicine and understanding of health in all forms is at an all time high we only pick off the bits that suit us. Worse still we are not equipping ourselves and others for what happens when simply life gets in the way of intentions and we need to make amends.
Our work places are now built around the high flyers, graduate schemes, fast track schemes, talent spotting. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the world treated everybody as being that special. No doubt I have written this before but when I started in the NHS I was taken around Addenbrooke's Hospital by the lead nurse in Surgery. I met all kinds of people during the day from Medical and Surgical Consultants, to nursing and ancillary staff. From managers to people working in Estates. At the end of the afternoon I was asked who was the most important person I had met. Not wanting to shoot myself in the foot I gave an answer that waffled through the options. However, the answer has stuck with me heading towards half a career later. It was the man who kept the boilers running as without him no-one else could come to work and we would not be able to treat any patients. Their background role seen by society as insignificant has a huge impact on enabling everybody else to do their job. Yet where is attention largely focused, the high flyers, people simply disappear in to the back ground a great place to work needs to be a great place for everyone.
What can we do about this in the work place and in life. Let us start with the work place, it costs nothing to ask people how they are but do so with the openness to spend the time listening to the answer. Keep an eye out for someone who has suddenly gone quiet talk gently and with open questions that may allow them if they choose to reveal what is going on. Understand that the person who spends time helping an listening to others and telling them how great they are with sincerity is probably some one who knows what it feels like to face that challenge. In all honesty I know that feeling of worthlessness all to well, it is a familiar overcoat or blanket that no matter what I do, will always be part of my make-up. Yet recently I received an award at work for doing what comes naturally, ensure that people never feel alone and are supported. What was amazing was the message that was received and the warmth that comes from the comments. The award was only internal to the organisation, but the recognition from someone else meant so much. Therefore does your work place have a way of rewarding staff for doing those minor things that are out of the norm and make the work place a better place to be.
The work place is one thing but a lot of what we need to change is the society we live in. If you think that changing society is beyond us. We are all a part of society and change always comes from a small group of determined people, so in Barack Obama's words we are the ones we have been waiting for.
It is nothing drastic that I am calling for, no mass of diving on our swords; the changes are so subtle but could revolutionise society and the work place. Here are eight simple steps we can all take.
1) Simply listen to the challenges that other have coming up and then send them good luck messages before and congratulations afterwards. It always lets people to know that they are not on their own and that the pack is there with them.
2) Congratulate people whole celebrate their success but remember to share your own successes and ask others to join you in celebrating success in general.
3) If you offer to help someone or to be there, then do it and as all plans will occasionally fail be prepared to pick up the reigns of re-organising it.
4) Be more tolerant, if everyone was your kind of person then the world would be a better place.
5) Never give in to hate, one of the most important things I learnt in life from my Grandfather was a simple saying: "You are too young to hate; and when you are old enough to hate you will realise that it isn't worth it"
6) Think what message you are actually sending and more importantly how will it be received. The words we use and the actions that surround them are so important.
7) Learn to make amends, we will get things wrong no matter what we aim for but when we do, try to make it a goal to make amends.
8) Start admitting that no-one is perfect and comprehend that we need to live and work on our faults.
9) Remember to tell everyone you are close to how amazing they are and how much they mean.
Why should we do this well as I have felt recently and the motivation for this blog is best described by the words of Robin Williams again.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone."
In short let us rediscover our pack mentality, support each other, recognise our own talents and stand in amazement at the talents of others.
